syncretic was our Word of the Day on 12/19/2014. Hear the podcast!

Recent Examples of syncretic from the Web

Despite the protestations of those who felt that the party exploited the spiritual seriousness of Catholic art, the Met’s carpeted steps played host to a syncretic display of contemporary religious visuality.

This is difficult in India’s notoriously diverse amalgam, and so the ideologues of Hindutva have appealed to a primordial Vedic past, prior to the arrival of the Mughals, in a bid to negate the Hindu faith’s plurality and syncretic history.

Indonesia, the world’s biggest Muslim-majority country, has a constitution that recognizes other major religions, and practices a syncretic form of Islam that draws on not just the faith’s tenets but local spiritual and cultural traditions.

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'syncretic.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Did You Know?

Syncretic has its roots in an ancient alliance. It's a descendant of the Greek word synkrētismos, meaning "federation of Cretan cities-syn- means "together," with, and Krēt- means "Cretan." The adjective first appeared in English in the mid-19th century, and the related noun "syncretism" debuted over 200 years earlier. "Syncretic" retains the idea of coalition and appears in such contexts as "syncretic religions," "syncretic societies," and even "syncretic music," all describing things influenced by two or more styles or traditions. The word also has a specific application in linguistics, where it refers to a fusion of grammatical forms.